One of the best ways to promote welfare for laboratory macaques is through social housing. There are multiple benefits of social housing including promoting species-typical behaviors and decreasing abnormal behaviors. Further, having a social partner can help mitigate response to stressful events, a phenomenon known as social buffering. While social buffering is known to reduce stress in a variety of species, there are relatively few studies in macaques. We examined whether having a social partner reduced response to construction noise, an unpredictable environmental stressor, in 22 indoor housed adult (5-19 years) male rhesus macaques (14 pair housed, 8 singly housed). We took took instantaneous focal observations 2-3 times a week and recorded the occurrence of stress-related behaviors. We compared behavior between days in which there was or was not construction using repeated measures ANOVA, with housing as a grouping variable. Single housed animals showed more anxiety (F(1,20)= 5.3, p=0.03) and stereotypical behavior (F(1,20)= 4.7, p=0.04) than paired monkeys regardless of construction noise. Interestingly, while both single and paired monkeys showed more stereotypy on construction days (F(1,20)= 13.9, p=0.001), this increase was significantly more pronounced for the single housed animals (F(1,20)= 7.9, p=0.01), suggesting that the construction may have been more stressful for these animals. While preliminary, our results support the social buffering benefits of pair housing in monkeys faced with unpredictable environmental stressors.